The Difference Machine
An AI publishing workflow where machines do the repetitive work and a person signs off before anything goes out.
Visit project- Chief Marketing Officer
- Jan 2026 — current
- The Difference Machine
- The Difference Machine
- Berlin, Germany
- Client
Overview
The Difference Machine is a Berlin fiction development and production company with an AI-native studio practice. I built the publishing workflow behind its website, The Pipeline newsletter and its social channels — one that automates the repetitive work around human decisions instead of replacing them.
My Role
Chief Marketing Officer. I wrote the rules the workflow runs on, approve company content, and read what happens after publication. Agents do the schedulable work. Anything in the founder's own voice is written and approved by a person.
System
Internal knowledge and outside research feed topic discovery. A person approves the direction before anything is produced; the machine turns approved material into articles, newsletter and channel formats; a person checks it again before it goes out. Interviews and partner announcements have their own presets.
Result
The Pipeline reached approximately 10% weekly subscriber growth and a 90% open rate. Automation ended up concentrated on repeatable work, with the judgment calls left visible and human.
How it was built
- A small company had to publish continuously — articles, a newsletter, social channels, a site — while every decision that carried the founders' voice still had to be made by a person.
- A hybrid production line built around approval gates. Research feeds topic discovery; a person approves the direction; the machine produces; a person checks before publication. Around that: company calls turned into task lists in Notion, a team assistant, and the pipelines behind the site and the newsletter.
- Chief Marketing Officer. I wrote the rules the system runs on and I run it. Company content is reviewed by me; anything in a founder's personal voice stays separately human-written.
- The Pipeline reached approximately 10% weekly subscriber growth with a 90% open rate.
Claude Code · custom agents · Notion API · call transcripts · newsletter and site automation